Reupload - Brotherly Lovers - If You Need A Love Song/ Our Favorite Hill

Rough and ready garage ballad from New York

Label: eskee

Year of Release: 1966

Brotherly Lovers are responsible for a garage track called "Was A Lie" which has been talked about enthusiastically online for awhile now. Rough and imperfect, it sounds as if was recorded for a few cents, and even they were probably fed into the electricity meter just to keep the session going.  Like so much of its ilk, though, it possesses a charm that some contemporary hits of the time lacked.

Far less has been written about its follow-up "If You Need A Love Song", despite - or perhaps because of - the fact that this seems to be the release where Brotherly Lovers had smoothed off some of the rough edges. Sounding less buzzsaw and agitated in approach and more akin to an aspiring folk-rock group, it showcases gentle vocal harmonies and a slightly melancholy but jingle-jangle melody. Still, though, there's a brittleness and punkish naiveté to the delivery which clearly indicates that this is still a low-budget affair, like a DIY eighties indie take on The Byrds as opposed to the polished Columbia Records deal.

Tony Washington - Crying Man/ Please Mr. DJ

Island ska songwriter with a neat piece of mid-tempo soul

Label: React

Year of Release: 1965

The name Tony Washington may not seem immediately familiar, but he is believed to have played piano on the historic, ground-breaking recording of "My Boy Lollipop" by Millie, and also wrote the single's B-side "Something's Gotta Be Done".  Arriving from Jamaica in the early sixties, he found an early champion in Chris Blackwell who, besides the Millie gig, cut some of his own singles on Island and also the label's Black Swan and Sue subsidiaries. 

Unfortunately, unlike Millie his solo ska material never really came close to breaking into the mainstream, and most of his singles are incredibly scarce these days. He attempted some non-ska releases too, such as the track "Sunday" in 1963 which was aimed more at the pop market, but even these went nowhere.

Given the fact that "Crying Man" found its home on the tiny independent label React, it's arguably one of his more obscure and poor-selling efforts. Like "Sunday", though, it falls back on a conventional structure, this time a jogging soul sound. You could almost describe it as a Northern Soul sound, but it arguably lacks the tempo or the emotional delivery; Washington's vocals in places sound oddly cheery given the rather glum break-up the lyrics portray. Nonetheless, it's a solid performance and a highly likeable record. 

52nd Precinct - Time Is Tight/ Feel It

Vast, ever-evolving library track featuring fuzz guitars and flutes. Nice!

Label: Dart

Year of Release: 1973

Now here's a treat. This appears to be a different treatment of Simon Park's track "Precinct" (issued under the name Simon Haseley) on the DeWolfe LP "Hogan, The Hawk and Dirty John Crown". 

Clocking in at four-and-a-half minutes long, a fuzz guitar introduces the proceedings before the track slowly unveils puffing flutes, groovy beats, and foreboding brass lines. Slinky, sleek and atmospheric, it's a complex and genuinely lovely bit of work which is clearly inspired partly by Isaac Hayes' soundtrack to "Shaft".

If it sounds halfway familiar, that's because elements of it have been used in soundtracks - even recently, "Bargain Hunt" has apparently utilised its charms during an episode (Yes, I know).

The Almond Lettuce - Tree Dog Song/ To Henry With Hope

Bouncy but marginally deranged popsike from this mystery band

Label: Columbia

Year of Release: 1968

Arguing about what constitutes a "psychedelic" record has been an intense political debate for collectors for decades now. People the length and breadth of the country have screamed and shouted at each other in pubs demanding to know what exactly is so "way out" about the contents of some of the "Rubble" series. Why, I even have a scar on my forehead from the time someone angrily threw a copy of Barnaby Rudge's "Joe Organ & Co" at me, yelling the words "You couldn't listen to that while taking a trip, you moron, it sounds like a third-rate sixties Bowie out-take" (Some of the above may be lies).

I'm using the word "psychedelic" to describe this record advisedly, then. It's hardly "See Emily Play", but then again... both sides are infused with a pie-eyed, child-like worldview, and arrangements which are prone to sharp diversions. "Tree Dog Song" on the A-side has one of the worst and most irritatingly child-like intros in the world, but gradually settles down into sounding like The Kinks at their most skewiff and countrified singing about God knows what. 

The B-side is the real winner for me here, though, delivering absurd lyrics about domestic failures and marital break-up over a melancholy organ sound and insistent, minimal, chiming guitar line. "Oh Henry... I know that the rhubarb pie was under-done/ and your cricket pads were stained with eggy juice" the singer explains, and it's hard not to empathise. Henry sounds like a monster. The song also has a McCartney-esque bounce to it which is compelling. 

Reupload - Chris Sievey - Camouflage

The person beneath Frank Sidebottom's head with a genuinely cracking single

Label: EMI
Year of Release: 1983

I suspect that there will be non-British readers of this blog for whom the name Chris Sievey rings very few bells, the significance of it being utterly lost. But then again, maybe not - maybe times are changing. Since the release of the film "Frank", which was partly based on Sievey's Frank Sidebottom persona, more people around the world are beginning to question who he was and what drove him on through numerous years of near-breakthrough success and utter failure.

Sievey's bullheadedness and resilience became apparent very early on. In 1971, at the age of sixteen, he and his brother hitch-hiked from their home city of Manchester to the Apple headquarters in London  and refused to leave their offices, demanding to meet one of the Beatles so they could play them their music. Staff were unable to help, but the Head of A&;R Tony King allowed them some time in Apple's studio to record a demo, though he clearly wasn't interested in making a signing upon hearing the results. For the next few years the rest of the music industry remained similarly oblivious to Sievey's charms, and he self-released numerous cassettes and slabs of solo vinyl to the public's general indifference.

His solo efforts gradually morphed into the band project The Freshies in 1974 (who, according to Sievey, a very young Johnny Marr tried to join) who slowly began to attract attention, hitting their peak after being signed by MCA in 1981 and almost having a hit with "I'm In Love With The Girl On The Manchester Virgin Megastore Check-Out Desk". Follow-up efforts such as "I Can't Get Bouncing Babies By The Teardrop Explodes", however, were greeted less keenly, and MCA lost interest, as eventually did the rest of the band, leaving Sievey to release solo material again.

While even his greatest fan would probably have to admit that Sievey was sometimes much too keen on gimmickry and whimsy to connect strongly with the general public, "Camouflage" is one of those eighties hits that should have been but never was. Bulging with hooks, anthemic riffs, a Springsteen-esque chorus and a keyboard line peculiarly reminiscent of Carly Simon's "Coming Around Again", its a lean and marvellous pop record which should have been on the radio dozens of times a day. In the event, "Camouflage" got a slot on Channel 4's "The Tube", some minimal radio exposure, and little in the way of sales. If he seemed to give up on a straight pop career after this, I for one can't blame him - "Camouflage" is the sound of someone throwing every last great idea they have at the wall and smoothing everything over to commercial neatness and perfection.